The Best Candidate? New elections administrator meets few requirements
Considering the embarrassing mess that Teresa Navarro, Hidalgo County's former elections administrator, has found herself in and has dragged the county into, it would seem reasonable to assume that the powers that be would have wanted to choose the very best candidate possible to replace her.
Well, the administrator named Wednesday hardly appears, at least at first glance, to quite fulfill that seemingly reasonable expectation.
The new elections administrator - who supposedly was unanimously chosen by the county commissioners and the county elections commission - is Yvonne Ramón, who will come into the job with absolutely no experience in dealing with elections.
How, exactly, it was determined that she was the "best qualified" of the candidates appears to be a total mystery. In fact, she seems to meet very few of even the "minimum qualifications" that Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas set forth to be considered for the post.
The county judge himself listed the "minimum qualifications" on his Web site, www.judgejd.com:
"A four (4) year college degree from an accredited university or college in public or business administration or political science and five (5) years of progressive managerial and supervisory experience; including four (4) years of demonstrated and effective experience in an elections related area. The administrator must be a registered voter of the state (Sec. 31.034 Election Code). May not be a candidate for public office, hold a public office, or hold an office or position in a political party. Other restrictions apply. (See Sec. 30.035 of the Election Code). Expert knowledge of concepts, practices and procedures of department and related functional areas is expected from the incumbent."
Ramón' holds bachelors and masters degrees from University of Texas Pan-American, but neither is in one of the fields proscribed in Salinas' minimum qualifications list. On her application for the post, Ramón says her bachelor's degree is in education, sociology and English and her master's is in educational leadership.
Although it is likely that she has voted in elections, that does not come anywhere near filling the stated requirement of "four (4) years of demonstrated and effective experience in an elections related area."
The funny thing is that among the four finalists for this spot, at least two met the minimum qualifications, including the elections-related experience. They, however, were passed over for the job. Why?
One of Ramón's major qualifications stressed during Wednesday's announcement is that she is the assistant principal at Fossum Elementary School. Someone, however, failed to mention that she was named to that post at the brand new school - which has yet to open - on June 8, meaning she has never even functioned as the assistant principal in any sort of active setting there.
Although we hope we are wrong and Ramón turns out to be a fantastic elections administrator, this appears to be yet another instance of Hidalgo County governmental business as usual.
